I was just being tongue in cheek, acting out and overexaggerating a bit because we defeat Elon so infrequently. Some of you guys get upset too easily. Lighten up. If we're going to have a bad program that we can see is not going to improve anytime soon we can at least make some light of it for our own amusement. After all, at the end of the day it's not life or death- sports should be a very small part of our everyday lives. My goodness.

I am just a frustrated fan who is actually a great lover of baseball and am tired of the same disappointing results every year with no real reason to expect any improvement on the horizon. I guess this is just how I express that. But I respect your board and your viewpoint DJ and you have always been more than fair with me and the other board members. So I will stop making negative posts.

94, it is frustrating. I am sure it is a frustration shared by the team and the coaches. The standard we set is high. My goal for our teams (as well as myself) is improvement. What is going better for the team now than at the end of the season last year? Or versus earlier this season? As someone who loves baseball like you do, can you tell me that? I can see the scores, but I want to know the trajectory. I want to see these athletes improving as they play. Is that happening?

I believe that it takes that building on the fundamentals day in day out, season after season to build a winning program. I can't flush the season as a farce as long as I know that building that coaching up is happening.

Here's hoping for improvement today and victories tomorrow.

"There are things that you value and things that you will fight for. That is what today's all about. We fight for that short-haired dog and that name across your chest." Mike Ayers

Dungeonjoe, I wish I could type fast to let you know a few thoughts, but since I can not, I'll give you a short version of an old insiders view of the program.1. To much control at the top that chokes the life out of the team. The kids are terrified to "fail" and therefore "fail".2. A mentality of pitchers vs. position players, Kills the "team".3. The top coach can not see a player play well without having to put his signature on the kid by changing what has worked and basically making the player regress, There are many examples I could share over the last 7 years.4. A change in philosophy from playing good teams early to be ready for the SoCon, to playing crappy teams to rack up wins that don't make the team better.5. Focusing on crap that does not matter like trying to lead the nation in a catagory like stealing bases that has not translated into wins. This leaves open bases for the other team to pitch around the few players that can hurt them.

Our "trajectory" seems the same as it has been for years. Play decently early and maybe get a few wins but fold tents completely as season goes on. There are a lot of reasons for this, some related to funding equating into better talent (especially on the mound), some related to coaching and chemistry. I don't think playing small ball is a bad strategy to build the program around but we MUST play good defense and have good pitching to be successful at it. Therein lies our problem.While a coaching change may solve some of those problems, it won't solve all. More importantly, I have ZERO confidence that another "national search" would yield better results than the last. We could very likely do worse. I have said it before and I will say it again: the hiring decision in '07 set our program back at least a decade. Regardless of TI's ability and worthiness, it was a bone headed, disengaged, beareaucratic decision made by a committee which served as a scape goat for an administration that didn't care enough to take ownership over it, a committee with only one member who knows anything about baseball. So here we are: 7 years in with marginal (if any) real improvement in the program.And until the college as a whole gets engaged enough to really improve and support the program, nothing is going to change. We are just wasting our breath and banging our heads against the wall. Which is why I choose to support TI and the team hoping for the best.What did Scarlett O'Hara say: "Tomorrow is another day".

Looking at the program, I tend to focus on the positives that I see developing within it. I have not had the opportunity to watch our coaches interactions with players or talk to him personally. I will leave those comments to people who have. I know that our OOC schedule is weaker in regards to previous seasons. However, our record in those games should give our program a good boost. We have for the most part manhandled the Big South and held our own with the rest.

Say what you will but that should give or team confidence to move in the right direction. The SOCON is an excellent baseball atmosphere with solid programs. We've improved in areas where we can...manufacturing runs...defense...pitching (somewhat). Some improvements can be measured in fractions but they are improvements. We are not going to muscle in runs via the long ball especially with the dead bats college baseball uses and with the limited resources we have to attract big time hitters.

Seems like the staff understands this and has embraced the idea of decreasing the run differential we've encountered the last decade by squeezing out about .5 to 1 more runs per game and decreasing our team ERA. The result being we are more competitive.

We have not gotten past the psychological hump of feeling inferior in the SOCON. I give a lot of credence to the idea that you play up to the standards you set for yourself internally and raising those standards will take time. We are doing that. Whether or not we are doing it fast enough for our fan base is the rub.

Ruckus wrote: until the college as a whole gets engaged enough to really improve and support the program, nothing is going to change. We are just wasting our breath and banging our heads against the wall. Which is why I choose to support TI and the team hoping for the best.What did Scarlett O'Hara say: "Tomorrow is another day".

I guess we have seen Ayers and Young do miracles with so little, that we have come to expect that as normal. It is not. Perhaps that is an apples to oranges to grapes comparison, but to expect major change with only a coaching change (7 years ago or tomorrow), seems crazy. Without funding improvements, it seems we are setting the team up to fail...again.

"There are things that you value and things that you will fight for. That is what today's all about. We fight for that short-haired dog and that name across your chest." Mike Ayers